Inside Starwood Capital’s New Miami Beach Headquarters

November 29, 2018

A sign of the times? Greenwich, Connecticut-based Starwood Capital has filed plans to build a new, expanded headquarters in Miami Beach, just across the street from one of their many successful projects in the area. This news comes just after CNBC published a report, stating that Florida could very well be the beneficiary of a mass-exodus from the Northeastern United States after President Trump’s new tax bill comes into effect. Those who will be most affected are high earners in high-tax states such as Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, and California.

Barry Sternlicht has long been an investment visionary, with successful ventures under the Starwood Capital name starting just after the Savings and Loan crisis of the early 90’s. The company also affected Miami in a positive way after the 2008 financial crisis, when Starwood Capital purchased the distressed buildings that were being financed by Corus Bank, which had not survived the times. Starwood Capital finished the buildings and sold the remaining inventory, and in my opinion, catapulted our rebound after those dark times. Those buildings included Infinity at Brickell, Mint at Riverfront and Paramount Bay in Edgewater.

Although he does carry out investments in other states, Mr. Strenlicht has become a fan of Miami Beach. He recently purchased a property at 2374 North Bay Road and had Kobi Karp design a new home base for him. He has now changed Miami Beach to be his office headquarters on his website and is designing a new main office base for his 3,800 employees. Naturally, all 3,800 employees will not work at the headquarters, but after seeing the plans they may want to.

The new office will be located at 23rd and Collins, just across the street from 1 Hotel and Homes, another of Starwood Capital’s successful projects. It will be 6 stories tall with ground-level retail and robotic parking in order to provide 305 parking spaces in the smallest footprint possible. This will allow for larger sidewalks and additional retail space for pedestrians. Inside the office portion, employees will enjoy 13-foot ceilings and 135,000 square feet of office space. A variance will be required in order to achieve the height but is likely to fly through the process. Gensler designed the project, which was presented to the design board this week. The plans can be found here.

With high hopes to be settled in by the time their current lease expires at 1601 Washington Avenue in 2021, Starwood is not slowing down. Last September, they invested $250 million into micro-hotel suites under the name of Yotel, which also recently announced its first Miami location. The Miami Yotel will be built just west of Paramount Miami Worldcenter in Downtown Miami and recently opened pre-sales with prices starting in the $250,000’s.